THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST
SPREADING THE SOUL-SAVING MESSAGE OF JESUs
“The Inspiration of the Bible” [Part 2]
Introduction by narrator accompanied by a cappella singing:
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Spreading the soul-saving message of Jesus. And now, James Gravelle.
“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: ‘Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone’” (Job 38:1-6). Welcome to THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. In Job 38, God comes to Job and begins to ask him questions. Job and his friends thought that they had the answers to practically everything. However, Job very quickly learned about the superiority of God. Job was faced with questions that he had no way to answer. Some of these questions cannot be answered even today by the world’s greatest scientists.
This is the fourth lesson in our series on “Fundamentals of the Faith.” As Christians, we must be able to prove the existence of God. We also must be able to prove that Jesus is Deity. And we must be able to prove that the Bible is God’s Word. In the first two lessons, I gave evidence to establish that God does exist and that Jesus is the Christ. In the last lesson, I provided evidence to show that the Bible is what it claims to be—the inerrant, all-sufficient, inspired Word of God. In this lesson, we will be examining additional evidence supporting the Bible’s authenticity.
Before we go any farther, let me set forth a few basic facts. The Bible is not a history textbook, yet it does contain truthful history. The Bible is not a science textbook, yet it contains accurate science. The Bible is not a world atlas, but it contains accurate geography. These facts help us to understand the underlying point that the Bible is both inerrant and inspired. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we are told that God has given us the information we need to know about certain things. Remember what Peter said in 2 Peter 1:3—God “has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” Remember the words of John in 1 John 5:13—“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” If we could not prove that God exists, then we hardly could know His will for us. If we could not prove that Jesus is the Christ and that He died for our sins, we hardly could have any accurate knowledge of our eternal destiny. If we could not prove that the Bible is God’s Word, then how could we trust it to point the way to salvation? The answer to each of these three questions is that we could not. We simply could not know. But God, through His Word, tells us that we can know. There are those in the world around us who would do almost anything to create doubt within the hearts of Christians. God, however, has done His part to put in place the means for humankind to know that adequate evidence is available and is plentiful.
Among the many intriguing proofs of the Bible’s inspiration is its unique scientific foreknowledge. From anthropology to zoology, the Bible presents astonishingly accurate scientific information that, on their own, the writers simply could not have known. Henry Morris has suggested, “One of the most arresting evidences of the inspiration of the Bible is the great number of scientific truths that have lain hidden within its pages for thirty centuries or more, only to be discovered by man’s enterprise within the last few centuries or even the last few years.” Look with me now at just a small sampling of those scientific truths.
We know that the Bible is the Word of God because of the facts that it contains concerning astronomy. Isaiah, in speaking of God, stated, “It is He Who sits above the circle of the Earth” (Is. 40:22). The Hebrew word that Isaiah used for “circle” means “something with roundness; a sphere.” But the people of Isaiah’s day thought that the Earth was flat, and that was the concept of many generations of people who followed Isaiah. Later, of course, it was discovered that the Earth is not flat, but is a circle or sphere. Isaiah had been correct all along, even when the people of his day had emphatically stated the opposite. How did Isaiah know that the Earth was a sphere? Was it just a “lucky guess”?
Psalm 19:6 contains several interesting scientific facts. In speaking of the Sun, the psalmist said, “Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end; and there is nothing hidden from its heat.” For years, Bible critics scoffed at Bible believers, stating that this verse taught the false concept that the Sun revolves around the Earth. We know today, of course, that the Earth revolves around the Sun. But only recently has it been discovered that, rather than being fixed in space, the Sun is actually in an orbit of its own. In June 1999, astronomers focused their attention on a star at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and measured precisely for the first time how long it takes for the Sun to circle its home galaxy. Scientists now believe that orbit takes more than 226,000,000 years! It is estimated that our solar system is moving at the pace of approximately 600,000 miles per hour. But, how did the psalmist make such accurate statements when we did not know the rest of the story until just a few short years ago?
Concerning light and darkness, the Lord asked Job (Job 38:19), “Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place?” Light is said to travel in a “way,” which is from the Hebrew meaning “a traveled path or road.” Darkness, however, is said to be in its “place” (from the Hebrew indicating “standing in a specific spot”). Until the seventeenth century, it was believed that light was translated instantaneously. Sir Isaac Newton suggested that light is composed of small particles that travel in a straight line. Scientists now know that light is a form of energy known as radiant energy, and that it travels in electromagnetic waves in a straight line. In addition to this, it is now known that darkness is the absence of light. How did the Old Testament writer know these things—as long as 5,000 years ago? Was it just coincidence?
God also asked Job (38:24), “By what way is light diffused?” [The King James Version uses the word “parted,” from the Hebrew word meaning to “divide, allot, or apportion.”] When a narrow beam of sunlight passes through a transparent triangular prism, the sunlight is broken into a band (or spectrum) of seven different colored lights. Sir Isaac Newton eventually discovered this, yet the writer of Job knew it first. Such knowledge as I have discussed here, if it consisted of just one or two instances, could possibly be considered coincidental. But the Bible is full of such evidence.
We know that the Bible is the Word of God because of the facts that it contains concerning biology. Moses stated several times in Genesis 1 that things reproduce “after their kind.” This, of course, is no surprise to us today because we understand genetics and the laws of heredity, which ensure that things do indeed reproduce after their kind. If a farmer plants tomato seeds, he knows full well that he will not be harvesting watermelons. If he breeds a boar to a sow, he knows that the end result will not be a baby calf. Tomatoes produce tomatoes, and pigs produce pigs. Why is that the case? It is because all living things reproduce “after their kind.” Even today in nature, these things hold true. But how did Moses know this many years before the science of genetics was developed? Paul stated that it is God Who gives all life (Acts 17:25). For centuries, men have tried to create life through some type of process of spontaneous generation. Even though men like Redi, Pasteur, and many others have shown time and again that spontaneous generation is impossible, evolutionists still keep on trying to prove such. But today, no one has ever created life, or even come close. Paul knew long ago that it was God Who gives life. Was this just another “lucky guess”?
We know that the Bible is the Word of God because of the facts it contains concerning physics. Moses stated in Genesis 2:1, “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.” This is an interesting assessment of the situation because Moses chose the Hebrew past-definite tense of the verb “finished,” indicating an action completed in the past, never to occur again. Moses stated that the creation was “finished” once and for all. That is exactly what the first law of thermodynamics stated. This law states that neither matter nor energy may be created or destroyed in nature. The Bible says that God “ended His work which He had done” (Gen. 2:2). As Henry Morris has suggested, “This is the most universal and certain of all scientific principles, and states conclusive that, so far as empirical observation has shown, there is nothing now being created anywhere in the known universe.” It is because God had finished His creation, and nothing is now being created.
But why is nothing being destroyed? [This is the second half of the statement of the law. Matter and/or energy may change in form, but the total amount of energy in the Universe remains the same.] Once again, the answer can be found in the science in the Bible. Nehemiah provided the answer when he said, “You alone are the Lord; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You” (Neh. 9:6). Notice what this verse says—“And You preserve them all.” If God is upholding it, then man will never destroy it. But how was this fact known to Moses nearly 2,500 years ago?
We know that the Bible is the Word of God because of the facts it contains concerning medicine. In Genesis 17:12, God commanded Abraham to circumcise newborn males on the eighth day. But why did Abraham choose the eighty day? Why not the seventh day or the ninth day? It has to do with vitamin K, and a substance (prothrombin) that cannot be formed without a sufficient quantity of vitamin K. In 1935, profess H. Dam proposed the name “vitamin K” for a factor that helped prevent hemorrhaging in baby chickens. If the quantity of vitamin K is inadequate, then hemorrhaging can occur. Interestingly, it is only on the fifth through the seventh days of a newborn’s life that vitamin K reaches adequate quantities. Vitamin K, coupled with prothrombin, causes blood coagulation, which is important in any surgical procedure. A classic medical text, Holt Pediatrics, corroborates that a newborn infant has “peculiar susceptibility to bleeding between the fifth and seventh days of life. Hemorrhages at this time, though often inconsequential, are sometimes extensive. They may produce serious damage to internal organs, especially to the brain, and cause death and shock.” This book was written in 1953. Obviously, then, if vitamin K is not produced in sufficient quantities until days five through seven, it would be wise to postpone any surgery until sometime after that. But now another question. Why did God specify day eight? On the eighth day, the amount of prothrombin that is produced by Vitamin K is actually elevated above one-hundred percent of normal. In fact, day eight is the only day in the male’s life in which this will be the case under normal circumstances. If surgery is to be performed, day eight is the perfect day to do it. Tell me this. How did Moses know that day eight was the perfect day? How is it, when he instituted circumcision, that Moses knew that day eight was the right day? S.I. McMillen, the renowned medical doctor who authored None of These Diseases, wrote concerning this information:
“As we congratulate medical science for this recent finding, we can almost hear the leaves of the Bible rustling. They would like to remind us that four thousand years ago, when God initiated circumcision with Abraham, He said ‘And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised....’ Abraham did not pick the eighth day after many centuries of trial-and-error experiments. Neither he nor any of his company from the ancient city of Ur in the Chaldees had ever been circumcised. It was a day picked by the Creator of vitamin K.”
Dr. McMillen’s book was written in 1963. Yet the medical information that was employed by Abraham, and that was confirmed by Moses, was scientifically accurate then, and still remains so to this very day. No culture around the Israelites possessed such scientific knowledge, which, by the way, was far ahead of its time. How, then, did Abraham and Moses come to know the best time for circumcision, unless, of course, this particular fact had been revealed to them by God and recorded in His Word through inspiration?
We know that the Bible is the Word of God because of the facts it contains concerning history and archaeology. The Hittites are mentioned over forty times in Scripture (Ex. 23; Josh. 1; and many other places). The Hittites were so feared that, on one occasion (according to 2 Kings 7:6), they caused the Syrians to flee from Israel. Yet, for years critics suggested that the Hittites were a figment of the Bible writers’ imaginations since there was no evidence of their existence or that they had ever been located. But in 1906, a man by the name of Hugh Winckler was excavating in what is now the country of Turkey. He discovered the Hittite capital, and found more than 10,000 clay tablets in the city’s library, containing the society’s law system (which came to be known as the Hittite Code). Ira Price wrote in 1907 of the Hittites,
“The lack of extra-biblical testimony to their existence led some scholars about a half-century ago to deny their historicity. They scoffed at the idea of Israel allying herself with such an unhistorical people as the Hittites, as narrated in 2 Kings 7:6. But those utterances have vanished into thin air.”
We could talk about numerous other instances, such as Belshazzar in Daniel 5, Sargon, King of Assyria (Is. 20:1), or Omri, King of Israel (1 Kgs. 16:16). The point is that with every scoop of dirt that the archaeologist’s spade overturns, the science of archaeology proves the Bible’s statements to be accurate. Are all of these things “just by chance”? We have seen the biblical writers pen accurate scientific statements long before such statements were even known to be true. The only way that they could have done this was by possessing superhuman knowledge. The words they penned were given to them by God.
Another point needs to be made, however. One would expect that if such writings were the product of man’s wisdom alone, and that if these were merely a group of random facts produced thousands of years ago, and that there were so many of them, there should be some that have been proven false. But where are the statements in the Bible that have been found to be untrue? The answer to that is there is not a single one. This, to me, is the single most-startling fact among all those that I have presented. In these lessons, I have touched only the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more evidence available to prove these things.
In the last lesson, I stated that God wants us to be concerned about evidence, and that He has given us evidence that should remove any doubt regarding His existence. He has given us abundant evidence that Jesus is Deity. And He has made sure that we can know and prove that the Bible is His Word. With the knowledge that the Bible is a credible witness, we then can know without any doubt or hesitation the secret things that it reveals to us—and know that those things are true. How do we know that there is a Heaven prepared for the children of God? It is only because the Bible says so. How do we know that there is a Hell prepared for the devil and his angels—one that we must avoid? It is only because the Bible says so. How do we know that our Savior’s sacrifice truly did pay the debt for our sins? It is only because the Bible says so. After establishing the fact that the Bible is in the inspired Word of God, we can trust everything it says. It has been proven to be true. You may remember that Jesus once said in regard to truth, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn. 8:32).
In Daniel 2, we learn of the kingdom that would have its beginning in the time of the Roman Empire. That kingdom is now in place, and Daniel 2:44 tells us that it will “stand forever.” In 1 Corinthians 15:24, Paul tells us that at the end of time Jesus will deliver that kingdom to God the Father. Those who wish to spend eternity in Heaven must be citizens of that kingdom. There are passages which teach us that the kingdom and the church are the same. It is the church that, in Matthew 16:18, Jesus promised to build. One verse later, He gave the keys of this kingdom to Peter, who used them to open wide the gates of the church, first in Acts 2 to the Jews, and then later in Acts 10 to the Gentiles. To those on that Day of Pentecost (recorded in Acts 2), entrance was granted upon the terms of their repentance and submission to baptism. In Acts 2:47, we lean that it is the Lord Himself Who adds to the church those who are being saved. Two thousand years later, the same kingdom/church exists, and the same Bible plan of salvation is in place. Are you a member of that blood-bought kingdom, the church of Christ? Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” God has given to you this opportunity to come to know the Truth. Why would you not take advantage of that knowledge? Seek out members of the church of Christ in your area, and they will be happy to study with you and to help you become a New Testament Christian. If you would like, contact us and we will help you find the closest group of God’s people. They will urge you to hear and understand God’s Word, believe it with all your heart, repent of your sins, confess the name of Christ before others, and be baptized for the remission of your sins. You see, this is God’s plan for man’s salvation. If you follow these steps, then the Lord will add you to His church. Once there, if you live faithfully unto death, He will give you a crown of life (Rev. 2:10).
We appreciate your participation by watching this program. Transcripts and study questions, and all of our other programs, can be found on our Website, www.thegospelofchrist. com. On our Website, you also will find videos of these programs that you can watch on your computer at home or at work. We also have all of our programs online in an audio format. If you would like to have any of our programs on DVDs or audio CDs, fill out the request form that you will find on our Website, or call our office at the number given following this program. We also have added a new section to our Website—Bible quizzes. These quizzes contain multiple-choice questions covering a broad range of topics, including the Old Testament, the New Testament, history, and geography. I believe you will enjoy them. Join us again next time as we continue to proclaim the Gospel of Christ.
Narrator accompanied by a cappella singing:
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1. In Job 38:1-6, who was speaking, and to whom was he speaking?
2. What was the purpose of the questions recorded in Job 38:1-6?
3. What, according to 2 Peter 1:3, do we possess within the Bible?
4. Why, according to 1 John 5:13, does God want us to have the knowledge that is contained within the Bible?
5. What statement is found within Isaiah 40:22 that depicts the Bible’s accurate scientific foreknowledge?
6. What interesting piece of scientific foreknowledge is found within Psalm 19:6?
7. In Job 38:19, God asked Job, “Where is the way to the dwelling [or road] of light?” What is significant about that question in regard to the Bible’s scientific foreknowledge?
8. The Bible teaches in Genesis 1 and other places that things reproduce “after their kind.” How does this conflict with the evolutionary dogma of spontaneous generation?
9. In Genesis 2:1 Moses wrote, “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.” With what fundamental law of science does this statement agree?
10. According to the information contained in Nehemiah 9:6, why can man not destroy energy and/or matter?
11. When Genesis 2:2 tells us that God “ended His work,” what does that tell us about the possibility of any new matter and/or energy being created today?
12. According to Acts 17:25, what is the ultimate source of all life?
13. In Genesis 17:12, what did God command Abraham to do in regard to the newborn Israelite baby boys?
14. On what specific day was the command of Genesis 17:12 to be carried out?
15. Why was the specific day mentioned in Genesis 17:12 chosen by God for this procedure?
16. What did Bible critics of the past say about the Hittites mentioned in the Bible?
17. What do we now know about the Hittites as a nation?
18. According to Daniel 2, what was prophesied to happen during the Roman Empire?
19. According to 1 Corinthians 15:24, what will Jesus do at the end of time?
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